The consequences of cynicism

Published 12:01 am, Sunday, October 9, 2011

Among the Occupy Wall Street protesters last week, a radio reporter found a young man who said it was government, just as much as big business, that drew him to camp out with the angry crowd.

"Government is bad -- you can't trust a thing it says," he insisted.

Now, I'm as skeptical as the next old newspaper guy, and I have been witness to plenty of -- how shall we say this? -- misrepresentations of verifiable reality from politicians at all levels.

But when did we settle on the notion that a person once blessed by the electorate with public office is immediately suspect as a liar, and that the government established to reflect our will is all evil and always untrustworthy?

Maybe we should take comfort that in the rhetoric of anti-government fervor, there is at last some common ground on which those on the left and the right can stand united. But the distrust reflected in both some of the current Occupy protesters and most of the tea party demonstrators of two years ago risks further erosion of the civic engagement that is crucial to a democracy's success.

Not that protests aren't useful. Big displays of citizen opinion often favorably shape policy. But flat-out cynicism is an emotional response, not a reasoned one, and democracy is undermined by the spreading notion that government is so bad that citizens can never trust it or any of the people who work for it.

Of course, Americans are less trusting of every institution these days. We journalists know this all too well.

A new study by the Pew Research Center found that the percentage of people who say stories in the news media are often inaccurate has almost doubled since 1985, from 34 percent to 66 percent.

Once you get beyond that vague "news media" moniker, though, people are less dubious. In the Pew study, nearly seven in 10 Americans said they have a lot of or some trust in the information they get from their local news organizations. Researchers found that for most folks, the term "news organization" generally means cable news outlets -- CNN and Fox News, mostly. So we're all tarred by the limited confidence people have in the constant cadence of doom sounded by cable news.

But people trust government even less than the media. Only 37 percent say they have a lot of or some trust in information from Congress, and only 29 percent say that about candidates. (The Obama administration, interestingly, came in at 50 percent.) So we don't trust government or the national media, generally.

But we're not fans of big business, either. In August the Harris Poll set out to see which industries people thought were doing a good job of serving consumers, and how opinions had shifted over the past two years. People reported that they really liked supermarkets, online search engines and hospitals more than they used to. They have grown to hate oil companies, tobacco companies and managed health care companies.

There is good reason to question what you hear from any source, and a thoughtful person will seek varying points of view before reaching a conclusion on everything from the implications of a federal tax policy to the bill your plumber says you'll owe to get the furnace ready for winter.

But outright hostility to the underpinnings of society can erode our communities. Why should people participate in the functioning of government, anyway, if it's always corrupt or nonresponsive? Why attend public meetings or volunteer or work with your neighbors to solve community issues? Why vote?

Here's something to chew on in these troubled times: A study released last month by the National Conference on Citizenship reported that states with more civic engagement experienced the smallest increase in joblessness between 2006 and 2010. One example: An increase of one point in a state's citizens' commitment to working with their neighbors was linked to a 0.25 percent drop in the unemployment rate. Another: Every one point increase in voter registration in a state yielded a drop of one-tenth of a point in unemployment.

Not big numbers, maybe, unless you're one of those folks without a job.

We hear a lot these days about how bad virtually every institution of society is. It's the stock in trade of talk radio hosts, for example. Don't think there's no consequence.

Criticism, even loud and unruly, can be valuable if it's specific and leads to action. But if it's just the kind of growling you'd hear from the guy on the next bar stool, here's a suggestion for the next time you hear it: Get up and do something positive for your community rather than giving ground to the cynics.